Rail transport in Vermont

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Map of Vermont railroads

The rail traffic in Vermont began when in 1847 the first railway station in Vermont was opened. After just a few years, the railway network spanned the entire state. After the first construction boom, stagnation and times of railway construction alternated, in which the network was supplemented by branch and connecting lines. In 1908 the climax was reached with 1762 km of route. There were also some streetcar operators in the state. Several severe storms and the global economic crisis brought many unprofitable routes to a standstill before the Second World War . Even after the war, the line dying continued, so that in 2005 only 914 kilometers of rail lines were in operation.

After a few interruptions in the second half of the 20th century, several Amtrak express trains run to Vermont today . Some scheduled tourist trains offer additional travel options. Freight traffic is mainly handled by the Vermont Railway with its subsidiaries and the New England Central Railroad .

history

White River Junction site and station in 1915, looking east

Beginnings

After railway companies had been founded in the surrounding states in the early 1830s, Vermont also granted the first concession to build and operate a railway in 1835 . It should run in the valleys of the Connecticut River , Passumpsic River and Barton River , that is on the eastern border of the state, and run from the border with Massachusetts in the south to Canada in the north. For this purpose, the Connecticut and Passumpsic Rivers Railroad was founded on December 10, 1835 . Since the construction could not be financed, the concession remained unused. It was only after the concession was divided up in 1845 and the route was allowed to be built in sections by several railway companies that the necessary funds could be raised.

However, other plans have since emerged. The planned main line on the eastern border should be connected to Lake Champlain in the northwest. Two railway companies, the Vermont Central Railroad and the Champlain and Connecticut River Railroad (C&CR), applied for this. Both were founded in 1843 and began construction shortly afterwards. Both companies chose Burlington as their western endpoint because it is the largest city in the state and an important port on Lake Champlain. The C&CR built from Bellows Falls in a north-westerly direction to Rutland and further north, the Vermont Central joined in White River Junction on the main line under construction and led through the capital Montpelier .

However, the first trains in Vermont ran in a different direction from White River Junction. The Northern Railroad had built a line from Concord in New Hampshire to the Connecticut River, which opened on November 20, 1847 and ended on the west bank of the river, as it should connect there to the valley line. The station became a hub just a few months later, as Vermont Central and Connecticut & Passumpsic also opened their first sections from here.

The race to Burlington was won by Rutland & Burlington, which had emerged from the C&CR, with a lead of just 13 days. On December 18, 1849, the Bellows Falls – Rutland – Burlington line was completed, and the White River Junction – Montpelier – Burlington line on December 31. The main main lines were built by 1854. This included the valley route planned as early as 1835 from South Vernon on the Massachusetts border, where there was a connection to New York City. At first it only led to St. Johnsbury , but did not reach Canada until 1867. There was also a north-south route on the state's western border. It led from Rouses Point in New York via St. Albans , Burlington, Rutland to Bennington .

In 1853, the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railroad , later Grand Trunk Railway , opened Vermont's only line in colonial gauge (1676 mm). It had no connection to other railways within Vermont and crossed the northeast of the state on its course from Portland (Maine) to Montréal .

Second construction phase

Randolph Station 1937 (Central Vermont Railroad)

After a phase of stagnation, which also included the Civil War , the construction of the railway began again in the early 1870s. First, the Portland and Ogdensburg Railroad and the St. Johnsbury and Lake Champlain Railroad built a third connection between the two north-south routes. Starting from New Hampshire, the route led via St. Johnsbury on the one hand over the Burlington and Lamoille Railroad to Burlington, on the other hand to Maquam , from where steamboat connections led over Lake Champlain. In addition, numerous shorter branch lines were created, which were mostly operated by smaller local railway companies.

In 1874 the colonial track in Vermont was obsolete. In just one night, the Grand Trunk Railway switched the 480-kilometer route from Portland to Montreal to standard gauge . However, the uniformity of the gauge only lasted a few years. In 1880 the first narrow-gauge railway in the state was opened with the Brattleboro and Whitehall Railroad . The Deerfield River Railroad was the second and last narrow-gauge railway with public transport that followed in 1885. Both tracks were in southern Vermont and had a three-foot gauge. In 1905 and 1913, the two lines were also converted to standard gauge. However, many forest railways without public transport still ran on narrow lanes afterwards.

The construction of various tram companies also fell into this phase. As is customary in North America, these were licensed as railways. All networks were standard gauge. After horse-drawn trams opened in Rutland and Burlington in 1885, Vermont's first electric tram ran in Burlington in 1893. In 1911 there were tram networks in Bellows Falls , Bennington (two operations), Brattleboro , Burlington (three operations), Montpelier / Barre , Rutland , St. Albans , Springfield and Waterbury / Stowe .

In 1908 the Vermont railway network reached its peak with 1762 km. This corresponds to a distance of around 70 meters per square kilometer. For comparison: In 2005, one square kilometer in Germany covered a distance of around 110 meters. The last new construction of a railway in Vermont, which was intended for public transport, took place in 1913 by the Boston and Maine Railroad with the route Brattleboro - Dole Junction, with only the branch from Brattleboro station and half of the bridge over the Connecticut River in Vermont were. Most of the route was in New Hampshire. However, there were also some closures, which initially affected routes that were parallel to others. The first railroad to shut down in Vermont was the Lamoille Valley Extension Railroad from Maquam to Rouses Point NY in 1884 . In 1889 she followed the route of Burlington & Lamoille from Essex Junction to Burlington.

Decline

Bellows Falls 2001 station with an EMD GP38 (red) and an EMD GP40 (yellow) of the Vermont Rail System .
Essex Junction / Burlington Amtrak Station 2007, looking north
Amtrak White River Junction Station, Vermont's oldest station, with the Boston and Maine Railroad's 494 steam engine on display .

After the First World War, scheduled air traffic and the mass production of motor vehicles began. This led to a sharp drop in the number of passengers on railways and trams. While railway operations or even only passenger traffic ended on a few branch lines, most tram operations were shut down very soon. It all started with St. Albans in 1921, followed by Brattleboro in 1923 and Bellows Falls and Rutland in 1924.

A violent storm caused severe floods and landslides on the night of November 3rd to 4th, 1927. Many bridges were destroyed, railway embankments were washed away and tracks were buried. While the railways were being rebuilt, the tram companies in Bennington and Montpelier / Barre fell victim to the storm.

The beginning of the Great Depression in 1929 marked the end of the heyday of the railroad in North America. In the following years, many branch lines were closed and passenger traffic ended on others. The trams in Burlington (closed in 1929) and Waterbury / Stowe (closed in 1932) could no longer be operated economically. Another severe storm on March 18, 1936, very similar to that of 1927, destroyed many routes again. In the meantime, however, the number of transports on many railways had fallen so sharply that it was not worth rebuilding them. A hurricane in September 1938 brought further closures. Some cross-border routes to Canada were also already closed, namely the line at Beecher Falls leading only a few kilometers through Vermont, the former Rutland and Noyan Railroad and the Midland Railway of Vermont at Elkhurst . Vermont's last tram ran between Springfield and Charlestown, New Hampshire Railway Station in January 1947 .

A serious break in passenger traffic was a strike by the Rutland Railway workers in 1953. The workers had demanded better wages and shorter working hours, but in many cases were given notice because all passenger traffic was not resumed after the strike. In addition, two lines of the Rutland were shut down shortly before the strike. This story was repeated in 1961. After another strike, freight traffic on the Rutland also ended. While the main line north of Burlington was shut down, two new local railroad companies, the Vermont Railway and the Green Mountain Railroad , took over the southern parts of the network and continued to operate freight services on these routes from 1964.

Shortly afterwards, passenger traffic ended on other main routes. In 1965 the last trains ran between White River Junction, Newport and the Canadian border, in November 1966 on the Central Vermont Railway (CV) and on August 12, 1967, the last passenger train in Vermont ran on the former Grand Trunk route between Portland and Montréal. From 1972, Amtrak used the Montrealer between New York City and Montréal, which drove via the CV. Since April 1, 1995 this train has been running as Vermonter and ends in St. Albans. The Ethan Allen has been operating from New York City to Rutland since December 2, 1996.

There were also some changes in freight transport. Central Vermont, which had belonged to the Grand Trunk Railway, later the Canadian National Railway , since 1896 , was sold to local investors in 1995 and reorganized in New England's Central Railroad . The route from White River Junction to the Canadian border near Richford was also sold. While the Northern Vermont Railroad initially operated this route, the Washington County Railroad took over this task from 2003 . Like the Green Mountain Railroad and the Clarendon and Pittsford Railroad , this company is owned by the Vermont Railway and is part of the Vermont Rail System. Clarendon & Pittsford has existed since 1885, making it the oldest Vermont railway company still in existence today.

Several tourist trains operate on the Vermont Rail System, namely the Green Mountain Flyer from Bellows Falls to Chester, the Champlain Valley Flyer from Burlington to Shelburne, and the White River Flyer from White River Junction to Norwich.

In 2005, 914 kilometers of railway lines were in operation, which corresponds to about 37 meters of railway line per square kilometer, about a third of the value for Germany.

Closed railways

The main raw materials extracted in Vermont are wood, granite and marble. Public, but also numerous non-public railways were set up to transport these materials.

The largest logging is in southern Vermont on the Massachusetts border. As Vermont's first forest railway , the standard gauge Bennington and Glastenbury Railroad was opened in 1873 , which was shut down again in 1892 and at times also served public transport. There was also a forest railway in North Vermont. It branched off at North Concord from the Portland and Ogdensburg Railway and led to East Haven . It was in operation from 1882 to 1918. From 1891 onwards, numerous narrow-gauge forest railways were built along the Deerfield River Railroad . By 1914, a total of over 50 kilometers of railway lines had been laid here in the woods. When a forest was exploited, the tracks were torn down and rebuilt elsewhere. The last forest railways in Vermont were destroyed by the floods in March 1936 and shut down.

Granite was quarried in many locations in Vermont. Most of the railway lines that were used to transport this raw material, however, were public railways that also carried passengers. In some cases, however, the number of people transported was so low that only a combined passenger, mail and baggage car was hung on the Granite trains. These included the Hardwick and Woodbury Railroad and the Manchester, Dorset and Granville Railroad . Several granite tracks were also built south of Barre , forming a network that is more than 30 kilometers long and partially closed to the public. Some sections of this network are still in use today.

Another important network of mine railways was built from 1888 northwest of Rutland, where marble was mined. Several railway companies, all of which later became part of the Clarendon and Pittsford Railroad , built a total of 28 kilometers of standard-gauge railway lines that were used exclusively for freight traffic. The main route from Florence to Albertson and Rutland was public and also served some local industries. A short section near Florence is still in operation today.

Engineering structures

Bridge over the Winooski River at Burlington (New England Central Railroad).

Although the Green Mountains run through the entire state, the railway builders were largely able to do without tunnels. An 85.5 meter long tunnel in the urban area of ​​Bellows Falls is the longest rail tunnel in Vermont. It is still in operation today and was expanded and renovated in 2007. The state's only other 50-meter-long rail tunnel is in the metropolitan area of ​​Burlington under North Avenue and is also still in operation. It hit the headlines in 1918 when a head-on collision occurred in the tunnel that killed nine people.

However, bridge structures were all the more necessary to overcome the rivers and gorges. A total of 13 railroad bridges cross the Connecticut River, which forms the entire eastern border of the state. Only five of these bridges are still in operation. The Woodstock Railway crossed the deep gorge of the Ottauquechee River near Quechee over a 50 meter high yoke bridge , which was first replaced by a wooden arch bridge and in 1911 by a steel structure. The bridge has supported US Route 4 since the railway was closed in 1933 .

Several railways also crossed Lake Champlain. The Rutland Railroad had probably built the most complex construction . From 1901 the trains of this company crossed the lake in a north-south direction over dams and bridges that connected the two largest islands. The longest of these dams between Burlington and Grand Isle was three miles. The structures are still there, but were interrupted in some places after the railway line was closed to allow unhindered shipping.

Accidents

The first recorded railway accident in Vermont shows very clearly the difficult situation of the railway companies in the second half of the 19th century, which was characterized by competition and financial problems. The Missisquoi Railroad operated a railway line in northern Vermont and competed with the South Eastern Railway for freight and passengers. On November 4, 1883, a South Eastern worker adjusted a switch near Enosburgh , so that the Missisquoi passenger train ran onto a siding and damaged the water tower. The locomotive fell into a river, killing the driver and stoker. The saboteur could be caught and sentenced. Due to the accident, the Missisquoi Railroad went bankrupt and was reorganized in 1886 under a different name.

The most momentous accident in the history of Vermont rail transport occurred on the morning of February 5, 1887. The Montreal Express of the Central Vermont Railroad derailed due to a rail break north of White River Junction while it was crossing a bridge over the White River . Four cars fell into the freezing cold river and were set on fire by leaking heating oil. 32 people died.

Curiosities

Three routes to Rouses Point

Lake Champlain covers the northern half of Vermont's western border. It becomes wider towards the north and therefore largely cannot be crossed by bridges. Shortly before the northern end of the lake is the state border with Canada. However, a bottleneck in the lake made it possible to build a railway line running in an east-west direction immediately south of the border. It was opened by the Vermont and Canada Railroad (later Central Vermont, CV) in 1851. In Rouses Point she came across the existing north-south route New York – Montréal.

A railway line to Rouses Point had also been built from the west by the Ogdensburg and Lake Champlain Railroad (O&LC) so that the CV trains could run through to Ogdensburg . However, the O&LC planned to run their trains towards the White Mountains in New Hampshire without using Central Vermont. So she built her own line from Rouses Point to Maquam by 1883, where the St. Johnsbury and Lake Champlain Railroad connected to the east. The route was completely parallel to the CV and even crossed it west of Alburgh . The O&LC yoke bridge was directly north of the CV bridge. Of course, CV did not agree with this competition and managed to replace the O&LC Supervisory Board in the summer of 1884. The new line was sold to CV and shut down and demolished after only 8 months of operation.

Later the Rutland Railroad also built its route north. Since she wanted to let her trains go through in the direction of Ogdensburg, she built another line to Rouses Point. Between Alburgh and Rouses Point it was parallel to the CV. Unlike O&LC 18 years earlier, Rutland did not build its own bridge over the lake. Instead, she negotiated a right of joint use of the bridge with the CV, but not of the tracks. Since the bridge was too narrow for two tracks, a track loop was built . In 1901 the line went into operation. With the dissolution of the Rutland in 1963, this line was also closed and removed. The CV line was shut down as early as 1962, so that trains today have to take the detour via Canadian territory or Rutland to get to the other side of the lake.

Fair Grounds Railroad

Another curiosity in the Vermont rail network was the Fair Grounds Railroad from 1890 to 1928 . The Twin State Fair was held annually in September on a site west of White River Junction and lasted one week. The railway was not operated at the other times.

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References and footnotes

  1. ↑ a b Poor 1911, page xcviii. There, however, the 1909 closure of the Victory – East Haven (6 km) line was not included in the statistics.
  2. ↑ a b see the official route network report of the AAR, as of December 31, 2005 (PDF) ( Memento from July 16, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ^ Lindsell 2000, page 209.
  4. ↑ Poor 1911, pp. 2562-2565.
  5. ↑ at approx. 38,000 km route length, according to the Federal Railway Authority.
  6. ↑ cf. http://www.rails-vt.com/ .
  7. ↑ Lindsell 2000, page 328.
  8. ↑ Lindsell 2000, page 173.

literature

  • George H. Drury: The Historical Guide to North American Railroads 2nd Ed. Kalmbach Publishing Co., Waukesha, WI 2000. ISBN 0-89024-356-5
  • Robert C. Jones: Railroads of Vermont. (2 volumes) New England Press Inc., 1993. ISBN 1-881535-03-7
  • Ronald D. Karr: Lost Railroads of New England. Branch Line Press, Pepperell, MA 1996. ISBN 0-942147-04-9
  • Robert M. Lindsell: The Rail Lines of Northern New England. Branch Line Press, Pepperell, MA 2000. ISBN 0-942147-06-5
  • Henry V. Poor: Poor's Manual of Railroads, 44th annual number. Poor's Railroad Manual Co., New York City, 1911.